Hello and welcome to Battleground 44 with me Saul David and Patrick Bishop.

Today in the first of two parts we're discussing Paris 44, The Shame and the Glory, Patrick's

brilliant new book, and one in my view that he was born to write. And I had to remind myself,

actually, looking at the back of the book, Patrick, that you had been for a while Bureau chief

in Paris for the Daily Telegraph. And of course, you've, you've had a long and close association with

France and Paris in particular. So would you say this was a book you were born to write?

Well, there's a very sweet way of putting it, Saul. And I think, you know, it never occurred to me

before, but that is one rather flattering view of it. And I think it's, you know, yeah, without being big-headed, I think that could well

be the case. You know, I was brought up as a Francophile. I don't know how, why it came about particularly,

but, you know, in my teens, I read a lot of French writers. France was cool in those days. It sort of

seems a bit, I think for a younger generation, it might be quite hard to visualize how it might

be seen or have been seen as a kind of, you know, centre of style of kind of intellectually

interesting developments. The French cinema was terrific. We were kind of enamoured of

French film actresses. One thing

the French never got right, of course, is pop music. So no one was ever into French pop.

But the old great, the great old chancelier, like Jacques Brel, you know, I was a big Jacques

Brell fan early on. So yeah, all in all, it was, you know, what I liked about it was not so much French high

culture, sort of Frenchness.

There was just something about the French and France that got me from the beginning.

I didn't actually go there until I was about 16 to 17 hitchhike to Paris with a mate of mine.

It now seems incredible that at that age you'll be allowed by your parents to go off and do this.

We camped in the, in the, there was a campsite in the Bwanda Beloit, which is actually still there.

...